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There once was a great scientist and his 

name was Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin 

Franklin was born on January 17, 1706. 

Benjamin's parents were Josiah and Abiah 

Franklin.   He was the 15th out of Abiah and 

Josiah's 17 children!  

When Benjamin was 17, he ran away to 

Philadelphia to work on his own. Benjamin 

accomplished many things when he was in 

Philadelphia. He found a job as a printer and 

printed a newspaper called the Philadelphia 

Gazette. Franklin also wrote Poor Richard's 

Almanac while he was in the the print shop! 

What   was the Almanac?

Benjamin was an innovator, which meant that 

he introduced many new ideas.   He was a very 

smart boy and accomplished many things at just 

17 years of age. Benjamin sold about 10,000 

copies of the almanac that he had printed! Can 

you believe that? It was great indeed. Poor 

Richard's Almanac contained many sayings about 

life. He had learned how to type and print at a 

very young age also. Benjamin was not like the 

other teenagers he age. 

Like mentioned before, Benjamin was a very 

smart boy because he read many books. He was 

never afraid to try new things. When a thought 

popped into his head he never hesitated to try it 

out. So one day he got the idea that lightning was 

a source of electricity. He was determined to 

prove it!

Franklin noticed several similarities between 

electricity and lightning. Can you guess what 

they were? Well they both made light, they made 

loud crashes when they exploded, they were 

attracted to metal, and many more. Very few 

believed his idea but no one had dared to test it. 

Benjamin always thought about what he 

wanted to do in the experiment, which 

materials to use, and also what to fix if an 

error occurred. Finally, he gathered the 

materials to do the experiment. Sometimes this 

process took a while. Ben was very eager to show 

the world that lightning was electricity. He 

decided to use a metal key to do this experiment. 

Yet, he still needed a way to keep the key in the 

air.

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